Annoyance

Sometimes I wish I had my to-do list stapled on to my forward so it was dangling in front of my eyes constantly. Then I'd be more likely to actually do the things on it.

IT LIVES!

I've had some problems with the laptop of late.

There was something wrong with some temporary files that caused the C drive to fill up. Then the laptop crashed via the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). I went to start it back up, crashed during start up that time. Booted it up again and it went into Start-Up Repair mode (as expected). It tried to solve a problem, but couldn't. Not a problem I thought, I have an image of the C drive backed up on my external hard drive. I'd lose most of my installed programs, but that's not a problem. I tried to restore from that image file. Things were going well until the laptop crashed again during the recovery. As it was in the process of essentially deleting and reinstalling Windows files, there are now some serious problems with the laptop and it won't ever let me get to the point where I can try to restore from my external again. 

No problem I thought, I have one month left on my warranty. I'll just take it down to the shop and they'll fix it. I went down to Tottenham Court Rd. The shop was shut. Like closed. Gone. Extinct. Bugger. I thought it'd be ok; Toshiba should still honour the warranty. I rang them that night to be told that their warranty only covers the hardware and as this was a software problem, I was on my own. Well not quite, they offered to pass my through to their Virgin Digital Help who would help me repair my laptop for a £50 fee. Grudgingly, I agreed.

Forty-five minutes, two escalations and lots of restarting later,  the technicians there admitted they couldn't help me. They advised me that I should get a CD version of Windows 7 and boot up the laptop using that rather than using the hard drive. As I had spent the time they wasted reading the laptop's manual in detail, I had already come to that conclusion myself. So I'm now hunting for a copy of Windows 7 Home edition to use for the repair. No-one in work has one and my sister's leads are coming up cold. The disks are expensive so I preferred not to spend money on them. 

The next idea I had was to use someone else's computer to torrent and burn the necessary disks. I cycled five miles to the Old Kent Road in the pouring rain, and slept on a couch while waiting for the 3GB installation disk to download. I burned it and put it into the laptop.... Nothing. I shouldn't have been surprised; the CD drive had been having problems of its own of late too. I had nothing to do but cycle back home. Again I was a victim of pathetic fallacy as the heavens opened up and I got drenched on my return.

So this Monday, I did the the unthinkable. I gave up. I had reached the point where I realised that proper professional help was needed. I dropped the laptop off to a repair shop, got a quote and returned a couple of days later. It's working now, but it'd have been much more satisfying had I fixed it myself. Oh well. I tried, valiantly. Plus, there's always that CD drive still to fix... I think I'll let Toshiba and my (hopefully still valid) warranty handle that.

Deliverance

Soon... soon... soon my laptop will be returned to me. Unfortunately the CD drive isn't working so well so it looks like Toshiba's warranty will be used after all.

A little thing I love

The UK-Ireland common travel area. Ain't nothing like by-passing the sunburned hoards coming back from Spain.

The Hardest Part

Back in London after a Christmas at home. It wasn't just Christmas; it was over two weeks off. Woo! Although right now, it doesn't feel so good. After being around people and around my family for so long, I'm feeling living on my own for one of the first times. I know it'll wear out after a week or so, but for now it sucks. I do miss being around people, but coming home to an empty flat after work has its own benefits. In a little while I'll be fine; I keep telling myself that.

Scientia potentia est

It's been a long two months since I've entered ye olde blogosphere, and that's usually a sign that things have been busy. Life has indeed become much busier now that I have a real job and a real girlfriend and (in general) a real life. I started blogging at the start of the year as a way to channel my energy when I was a little unemployed. That worked and I think it helped me get back into the groove of writing. That has proved quite useful now as I essentially work for a magazine.

In my job we traffic knowledge. We collect it, shake it down, and then pass it on for a cash fee. Information is a big business. This is shown that my company has recently been taken over by an American company, iSuppli. iSuppli do more hardware and systems stuff than our content based business and they are frequently quoted in the tech media for their "tear down" service where they work out the cost of manufacturing of various devices. That takeover went through formally last Friday. A matter of hours later, iSuppli were themselves (ourselves?) taken over by a very large public company; IHS. IHS have a billion dollar business in information. Scientia potentia est.

I've also crossed a personal milestone recently. Since I started work I've been reading various tech news feeds in order to keep up the happenings in the mobile world. In the three and a half months I have read over 10,000 news items. I've also attended my first analyst briefing; an interesting insight into the way other anlysts operate and of course the obligatory networking. After all who you know is about as important as what you know. In every way; scientia potentia est.

Things to do when I get paid

1. A haircut.
2. Cut spare keys.
3. Flights home in November.
4. Be sociable!
5. Buy Assassin's Creed 2 (I know this contradicts number 4).
6. Get some baking utensils.
7. Attempt some baking.
8. Get some frames and photos for said frames.